


Red or Blue?

by Raf_Doodle, SiladhielLithvirax



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Adaptation, Bathrooms, Bullying, Childhood Trauma, Creepy, Friendship, Gen, Good Writing, Horror, Interesting, Modern Era, Murder, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Original Character, Plot Twists, Rain, Short, Suspense, Thriller, Trauma, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26375350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raf_Doodle/pseuds/Raf_Doodle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiladhielLithvirax/pseuds/SiladhielLithvirax
Summary: University student Sophie has been through a lot, but nothing compared to what's about to go down in the haunted 2nd floor west bathroom on a stormy day.
Kudos: 2





	Red or Blue?

**Author's Note:**

> This short story is a modern adaptation of the Japanese/Creepypasta urban legend "Aka Manto" and takes place in the Western world.

It was a dreary and stormy day. Looking out the school windows beside me, I could see the heavy clouds crying tears out onto campus. I was walking down the hallway and gazing out into the gloomy sky with Grace, who was really the only friend I had. We idly watched the rolling clouds and growing puddles. It was a free period for us, and aimlessly wandering the hallways was our normal way of avoiding sitting in a silent study hall. 

“So have you studied for our math test yet?” Grace asked, cutting into the quiet hallway. 

“No,” I replied. “Why? You need help?" 

Grace sighed, “No just wondering, it’s just an important test and it's coming up soon.”

Turning the corner, I spotted Ms. Ainsley, the janitor, who was an elderly woman now. No one was entirely positive about how long she had worked in the school. Generally an unpleasant woman, she had a reputation of odd encounters and strange statements. Down the hall was Kat, arguing with one of her sycophants. We were too far to hear the interaction from this far down the hall. 

Kat was the collective fantasy of the student body at this point. Whether you wanted to date her or be her, she was it. It was hard not to notice her. Always smiling, warm honey eyes crinkled at the edges, she stood out in a crowd. Charismatic, beautiful, cheerful, and confident Kat had managed to wrap the school around her tiny pinky finger. She was exactly the type of girl I aspired to be. 

Grace glanced my way to see me staring at Kat. “Hey, stop that!” 

I jumped and asked in an innocent-sounding voice, “Stop what?”

“You know what you little shit.” Grace knocked shoulders while trying to stifle her laugh at my blatant behavior. 

I loved Grace, she was my sister in all but name. She had been there for me through some of the worst times in my life. Being bullied as a little kid hadn’t really helped set me on a good path and so when I developed an eating disorder, Grace was the one who was there for me and helped me get back into a normal life. 

Kat glanced away from her argument when she heard Grace’s laughter. After seeing the two of us looking in her direction, she darted towards the girls’ bathroom behind her in a rush. 

The sycophant, now without Kat’s shining presence, turned and started walking down the hall away from us, but something made me turn back and stare at the restroom Kat had darted into. That definitely wasn’t right. Kat had gone into the 2nd floor west bathroom. A place where no one went if they could possibly avoid it. 

It was a familiar tale to anyone who had gone to the school, 30 years previous, a girl had been killed in that exact bathroom. The investigation had been inconclusive, but a series of strange and odd tales had sprung up around the killing that persisted to this day. Turning to Grace, I asked her if she had heard about the murder.

“Yeah,” she replied. “They never found the killer right?” 

“There are myths that it was Aka Manto,” I told her, raising my eyebrows and waving my hands in what I thought was a suitably spooky and cliche gesture. 

“Who?”

“Aka Manto is a mysterious spirit that would ask you if you wanted red or blue toilet paper if you were in a stall with no paper. If you were to choose red, you would be brutally stabbed to death like the girl who was killed in the bathroom. However, if you were to choose blue, you would be strangled to death. The only way to escape was to say ‘no paper’ or to say nothing at all.”

Grace stared incredulously and told me, "Well that's the craziest bullshit I have ever heard.”

“Yeah, but it’s one of the fun myths that has popped up about the 2nd floor west bathroom.” 

The bell rang an end to the period before we could continue and Grace shot me an apologetic smile before heading off to her history class in the other building. I had lunch on the ground floor and was in no rush to find myself a single seat in the overcrowded cafeteria. 

“See ya!” I said as Grace headed into the stairwell, waving a last goodbye before the doors closed. 

I was planning on continuing the aimless walk Grace and I had started at the beginning of the free period, maybe ending up in the library but before I walked even 3 more steps. However, I felt discontent in my stomach. Pressing a hand to my abdomen didn’t seem to help. It definitely wasn’t a cramp, but a slight rumble was felt in my stomach, and a small silent fart squeezed out of my butt. 

This was not good. I had my purse on me, but the only other bathroom in this building was on the floor below and it was definitely going to be packed with the change in classes. I looked again at the supposedly haunted bathroom Kat had entered a bit before. She was still in there, and it definitely wasn’t as haunted as everyone thought. It was just a bathroom. Trying to convince myself was really not going well as every step I took towards the blue door, a further chill settled into my spine. Once I gained the confidence to finally push the door open to enter the bathroom, I thought to myself:

“ _ It’s a bathroom, what’s the worst that could happen? _ ”

The bathroom appeared quite smaller than others in the school, dimly lit by two small fluorescent lights flickering in the ceiling. To the right were two dark stall doors and under the one closest to me, I could just make out Kat’s feet, her black jeans and white underwear at her ankles on top of her red sneakers. The entire bathroom smelled musty and old, and a peculiar scent was permeating the air. 

To the left were three white sinks and a large rectangular mirror. Looking in the mirror, I could see my own reflection clearly through the years of grime and graffiti around the frame. Brown hair, green eyes, freckles dotting pale skin, and a green hoodie. However, there was graffiti bearing the words “Fat Fuck” written under my reflection. Those words and thousands of iterations had haunted my thoughts for years before. I was able to pull myself through the harmful spiral I had been in. I knew I’d never look like Kat, but I was proud of where I was, I knew myself. 

A noise interrupted my musings at the mirror. Coming from Kat’s stall, I could see a sliver between the door and stall wall, through which I could make out Kat sitting on the toilet. I could see her right thigh and red hoodie, but not her face, just her long hair draped around her as she appeared to look at her phone. As the rumblings in my own stomach had yet to abate, I moved into the only stall next to her. 

I locked the stall door and placed my purse on the hook on the front of the door. Undoing my belt quickly, I unbuttoned my blue jeans and shimmied them down to the floor. While looking down at my bare pale legs, I pulled down my white underwear to the floor as well. After hurrying to sit on the toilet seat, I finally felt relief from my upset stomach. I sighed in relief as my abdominal discomfort from a short time ago faded away. A similar sigh and noise reached me from the stall over from Kat. 

“Fuck,” she moaned after sighing in relief. 

I grabbed my phone out of the purse hanging in front of me and opened Instagram, scrolling through my feed until I stopped at Kat's latest post. Her posts were always popular, because she was Kat after all. She was now in the stall beside me, and I was apprehensive to talk aloud to her. We normally didn’t have the same circles in school, and I don’t think there had ever been a time I’d talked to this girl I admired so much. I had a terrible idea to break the somewhat awkward silence of the bathroom. My dark thoughts from thinking about the mirror finally drew away, and I smirked to myself. 

I let out a relieved sigh of my own and then unobtrusively dropped my phone, which landed under the divide between our stalls. In response, Kat snorted and reached down to hand my phone back to me.

“Thanks,” I said in an embarrassed tone.

I can hear a soft laugh from the stall over and a mirthful, “You’re welcome bathroom buddy.”

“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever had one of those before.” Those words came out before I had a chance to think, and for a moment I cursed my sharp tongue, normally not an issue when I was just talking with friends, but this was Kat. How the hell did I get to talking to the most popular girl in school while we were both sitting in bathroom stalls? 

A snort is what brings me out of my head, and Kat for some reason decides this is a perfectly natural place to continue a conversation, 

“Me neither. Then again, I’m not normally the type of girl who brings a whole gaggle into the bathroom with them. Why is that a thing we all do?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve never understood that impulse myself.” Unsaid was the reason I’d not liked having company in the bathroom with me. Eating disorders teach you how to hide yourself from friends very easily. 

Our conversation ended abruptly when Ms. Ainsley entered the bathroom. Her cranky janitor cart screeched its way in as its wet bucket slopped upon banging the door open to enter. I guess this was a normal thing for a janitor to do, but the general state of disrepair in the bathroom had been left in led me to wonder why she chose now to clean it. Regardless, I put my phone back into my purse and reached over for the toilet paper. Fuck. There was none left on the roll. 

“ _Aka Manto_ _is only a myth,_ ” I thought to myself.

I decided to lightly knock on Kat’s stall to my left as I would rather talk to her than Ainsley.

“Yeah what is it?” she asked in a disinterested tone, obviously still engrossed in whatever social media she had out on her phone. 

“I’m out of toilet paper,” I told her. “You have any?” 

There was silence and rustling for a moment and then she came back with a quiet, “No.”

I froze upon her denial. My heart began racing. This was really weird, but things got worse.

“Red or blue?” echoed the old crackling voice of Ms. Ainsley outside our stalls.

At that moment, my heart sank and all the late night reading of old myths and legends flooded back into my mind. I had a lump in my throat that was desperately wanting to reintroduce me to my breakfast. I desperately knocked on Kat’s stall.

“Kat!” I whispered urgently to the wall between the stalls, “Don’t respond to her!”

“Are you dumb?” she responded. “We both need toilet paper, she’s a janitor!”

“You’ll die! She’s Aka Manto from 30 years ago!” 

There was another silence from Kat’s stall and then a snort escaped, “You expect me to believe this Aka Manto shit is true! You’re so weird! Anyways, I have to wipe my ass, so red please!”

I heard Kat open her stall door for Ainsley, and waited with baited breath for a "Thank you" or something that would mean this was not one of my nightmares of old legends coming true. I did not hear Kat say “Thank you” afterwards.

“What the fuck?” she said instead.

Moments later, she screamed, and I heard four curious sounds next to me. I choked and slapped a hand over my mouth to stop any sound from escaping. Looking down to Kat’s feet, I almost screamed myself at the sight of dark red streams of blood running down her pale legs to the floor around her now “painted” underwear, jeans, and sneakers. 

I could feel my hands start shaking from where I still held one fisted in front of my mouth, pushing against my lips to keep any of the whimpers or screams sure to soon break free. There was silence now from the rest of the bathroom, even Aisnley’s cart was quiet. I didn’t know if she knew I was here, but I prayed to all the gods I thought I knew and some that were old as the Aka Manto legend was that she didn’t know. Eventually there was a slight squeak, and a bang that made me jump, the stall door next to me swinging shut. Then I heard footsteps right outside my stall door.

“Red or blue?” echoed Ainsley’s voice

I froze in fear. My heart was beating out of my chest. My mind was like a hurricane as it yelled at me to say nothing. Who knows if Ainsley would kill me regardless of me saying nothing? All I could do was just sit on the toilet fearfully waiting for all this to end. Perhaps I just had to sit forever with my pants and underwear down in this dirty haunted bathroom.

After what felt like an eternity, the squeak happened again and the sound of wheels heading away from the stall was what I could make out over the blood still pounding through me. Finally, the door to the bathroom opened, and I couldn’t make anything out over the muffled sound of my own harsh breathing. I was still too scared to move though. 

Terrified actually, terrified that all of those stories I’d read of in the dead of night were true, terrified that if I opened the door to my stall and looked into the one next to me, all I’d see would be a sight of death. A truly horrific death. 


End file.
